


consequences: aftermath

by peculiarpotato



Series: consequences [2]
Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Chapter Art, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Interactive, Mystery, No use of y/n, Non-Graphic Violence, Plot Twists, Reader-Insert, censored profanity, not a crackfic, sfw, unrevealed roles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29055438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peculiarpotato/pseuds/peculiarpotato
Summary: [Interactive: Outcomes of voting are determined by reader polls]When you find yourself on an alien planet with several strangers, you should have no idea what to expect. Yet, you are not quite sure as to why, but the way things are run feels... different. Answers are in short supply, until a visit from a malfunctioning spaceship makes you realize that this feels all too familiar- and you may not be who you think you are.
Series: consequences [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2131764
Kudos: 5





	1. Introduction

__

_You can go ahead and skip this if you wish, but this might answer some questions._

Welcome! 

This was originally posted on quotev.com, where the polls are held. All polls will be held on Quotev, but there will be links in the Ao3 chapters. I tried my best to transfer the formatting, but if something looks weird it is because of that. It’s backdated properly, but was actually published to Ao3 on January 28, 2021.

[Quotev link](https://www.quotev.com/story/13456585/consequences-aftermath-%E0%B6%9E-among-us-reader)

In case you just happened to stumble upon this, I want to preface this by saying this is a sequel to consequences [(Quotev) ](https://www.quotev.com/story/13456585/consequences-aftermath-%E0%B6%9E-among-us-reader)[(Ao3)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29036286) , so I really suggest you stop right here and read that first if you haven’t. Technically this is readable without reading the first one I guess, but you will probably be pretty confused and miss out on the implications of certian things. There may be some recurring characters ;)

I’m going to be honest in that I never planned to write a sequel. It was supposed to be a one and done sort of thing, but the amount of love and interest that story got made me want to follow it up with something, especially for anyone who found it after the voting had been closed. So, I sat down, had a brainstorming session, and I think I got a plot together. We’ll see where this goes, there was not nearly as much planning involved in this one, oops.

Speaking of voting, for those of you who never got a chance to participate in the last one, I am returning to the poll system in this one! I had a lot of fun with it and you all seemed to as well. It’s pretty simple for those of you are new to it: whenever there’s an emergency meeting or a dead body reported, a vote will be triggered just like in the game. At the end of the chapter, there will be a link to a poll where you can place your vote (or skip). Whichever character gets the most votes will be who **_your character_ **votes for. All of the other characters have their own votes as well, but usually I nudge it a bit so they align with yours. 

Again, I will make my little ‘photoshopped’ voting screens to help show you how the votes are distributed. And don’t freak out, there’s a reason why there are only so many people on the example you’re seeing this chapter. There may be more added ;)

I will post another statistics and summaries chapter, but I am going to wait a little while. I noticed it was pretty difficult to avoid spoiling things in the summaries, and having that chapter at the end would confuse people who were looking for the most recent update. I will probably post it when we get to/around the end of this story. 

Last time I drew appearances for the characters and gave them to you right away. I’m not going to do that this time, and you’ll hopefully understand why later on. Also for settings, this time I’m not going to go into detail. I’ll let you figure those out on your own. This one is going to work a little differently from the last one, and you will just have to see how.

I think that’s about it for now, I wish you the best of luck and thank you for reading!


	2. [File 2-01: after we began]

It was cold. 

Why were you so cold? 

You were lying on some sort of hard surface, but it was difficult to discern exactly what. Metal, maybe? It was difficult to tell. Regardless, you were uncomfortable, so you opened your eyes to find the source of your discomfort.

It turned out you had been right. Your back was on the metal floor of what seemed to be some sort of massive transport vehicle. There was a roof above you, and walls surrounding you, so for a moment you struggled to understand why exactly you were so cold. The answer came quickly, however, when you noticed the wall opposite where you had been looking was made up of a massive door that was wide open. As you shifted to a sitting position, you rubbed your eyes to make sure what you were seeing was correct. 

It was snowing, which made sense with the cold feeling that crept through your body, but what you found odd was that the ground outside seemed to be purple. Surely it had to be a trick of the eyes somehow, or perhaps you were in a remote area somewhere with an odd geographical feature. You stood up and found your legs wobbly, as if they had not been used in a while. You were in danger of falling before you caught yourself on the wall, steadying yourself. 

As you focused on keeping your feet on the floor, you noticed something off to the side. It seemed to be a tablet of some sort. Perhaps you had dropped it at some point? Leaning over to pick it up sent you into a dizzy spiral, but you recovered quick enough. 

Something about the tablet in your hands felt familiar. Somehow it was both comforting, and terrifying. You shuddered, whether from the cold or something else was debatable, but it helped bring you out of your thoughts and into reality. Where exactly were you? That was the question. So far you had few things to note: some kind of transport, snow, and purple ground. Also, whatever you were wearing. You stretched out your arms to examine your outfit, and ended up more confused. 

You were wearing some sort of uniform. It had to be thermally regulated somehow as you were cold, but still warmer than you would expect for it to be snowing. For some reason your mind held onto the color. It was gray, which really did not seem to matter much but you were hung on that one detail. Like the tablet, once again, familiar. 

There was also the issue of the helmet you were wearing. At least, that is what you assumed it was. Either that or there was a fishbowl stuck on your head that you could somehow breathe through. Yeah, no. It was definitely a helmet. But why...?

Space. 

That was the only explanation. You were in space. 

Why and how you ended up in space you had no idea, which was probably not a good sign. In fact, the whole ‘waking up in an unknown place with no recollection as to how you got here’ was pretty worrying. That never meant anything good. Maybe you were suffering from main character syndrome and had a secret traumatic backstory. Or, you know, you just hit your head on something as the spaceship landed. Man, you really needed to get yourself together, your inner monologue made you sound like a nutcase. 

Right, Ok, back to figuring out things like survival. 

Your best bet was probably to head into one if the buildings you could see from where you were standing. You did not see anyone laying around on the floor like you had been, so either you were alone or there were other people scattered around. There was no way you could pilot a spaceship by yourself, so your best bet was probably the second option.

Slowly, you stepped out of what you assumed was a spaceship onto the purple ground. You scanned the area, looking for anyone, but coming up empty. 

From where you were standing, you could see several buildings. The one directly in front of you seemed rather small, but you could see a larger one behind that. To your left and right were also large, complex buildings, along with several smaller structures that you could barely see in the distance. There were also, for lack of a better term, several ‘spikes’ sticking out of the ground. They appeared to be some sort of electronic device, contrasting from the purple dirt and the snow. 

Slolwy, you began to approach the smallest building that was directly in front of you. 

“Hello?” You called out. “Is anyone there?”

You did not receive an answer. Would anyone even be able to hear you with this suit and helmet on? Probably not, unless there was some sort of radio communication or something. You debated whether or not to try to take your helmet off, but decided against it for a few reasons. The main one being the fact that you were probably wearing it for a reason as you were on what you assumed was an alien planet. You also had no idea how you would even begin to take off your helmet, and it was keeping the warm air contained inside your suit. So, removing the helmet was not something that was going to happen.

Cautiously you continued into the first small building. Again, you called out, and were not met with an answer. This was probably because there was nobody in the room. Figures. Your only company were inanimate objects, such as large green boxes and a fuel can. This must have been some sort of storage room. You also noticed a hole in the floor, sitting there in the corner of the room. It looked just a bit smaller than human-sized, but it was close enough where you did not step inside. It also gave off some sort of creepy energy, so you promptly left the room. 

As you left and headed towards the next building, you saw a flash of color appear in your vision. Upon getting closer inspection, it appeared to be another person, wearing a similar suit, but theirs was a bright red hue. For some reason, this startled you. Something about the color of this stranger’s suit made you scared of them, as if you could not trust them.

Well, obviously that was ridiculous. 

Yes, it did make sense for you to be wary of anyone around you. After all, you found yourself on an alien planet with no recollection of how you got there. Yet, for some reason, you felt as if if they had been wearing another color you would not be quite as scared. 

Doubts about their color aside, you realized that your best bet would likely be to approach them and ask what was going on. 

Unsure if calling out to them would work, you made your way over and tapped the stranger on the shoulder. They were staring at one of those mechanical spikes on the planet’s surface, doing something with it. 

“Hello?” You asked.

The stranger practically jumped several feet in the air upon your greeting. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” You apologized. “I’m just confused.”

You could barely see a face through the visor of the helmet, but from what you could see, the stranger was still a little nervous. You did not blame them. Had you been busy with something and someone just came up and tapped you on the shoulder, you would have been thrown off too. Yet, besides that, the stranger did not respond.

“Can you hear me?” 

The stranger glared at you and then went back to what they were doing. 

“Hello?”

You heard an audible sigh that you assumed had to come from the stranger. Perhaps they were trying to focus. Maybe if you waited until they were finished with whatever they were doing, the red-suited person would respond. So you just stood there for a while. As you stood, you could feel the tension rise. The stranger messed up on whatever it was they were working on, as their hands were shaking. 

”Are you ok?” You asked.

They jumped again. “Oh, you’re still here! ****, I mean, ah...”

”I’m sorry if I scared you.” You apologized. “I just am a little lost.”

The red-suited astronaut looked around cautiously before speaking. “Ok, what are you trying to find? We’re not really supposed to be talking though, so tell me quick.” 

Not supposed to be talking? You did not even know this person. “Sorry, I’m not...” Sighing, you cringed at the awkwardness of the moment. “I honestly have no idea what’s going on here. I just woke up on what I think is a spaceship and you’re the first person I’ve seen around.”

The red astronaut cocked their head at an angle, likely trying to get a read on your expression. “Hmm. I can’t say that I remember seeing you... wait!” Their eyes lit up with recognition. “You! You were the one that was lying down on the floor! I was worried about you.”

“I guess that would be me.” You shrugged. “Honestly I’m really pretty confused.”

”Ah. Yes, you would be, wouldn’t you? Well uh, hm.” They looked around again. “I guess I can use that meeting button thing to get everyone together, and they can help explain a lot better than I can.”

The red astronaut began walking towards a building a bit further on. You followed them, curious as to what exactly they had meant by ‘that meeting button thing.’”

”How many others are there?” You asked.

”Hmm.” They thought for a moment. “Besides me, and you now too, there are... seven? Yeah, that seems right.” 

You hummed to acknowledge their comment. “What’s your name?” You asked, mentally scolding yourself at the realization that you had never actually bothered to ask. 

“Oh. Uh, well, we’re not supposed to tell eachother for some stupid reason. You can just call me Red.”

”Well nice to meet you, Red. I’m,” You paused to remind yourself of your suit color. “Gray?”

”Nice to meet you too. I wish it was under better circumstances.”

The two of you entered into the building, and you took not of your surroundings. It seemed to be rather well put-together for something constructed on an alien planet. The room you were standing in had carpet and wallpaper, and even some small statues of astronauts placed on coffee tables. In a corner of the room was another hole, similar to the one you had seen in the storage room. Once again the holde gave you an eerie feeling, so you chose not to linger too long. 

Red led you to a conference room where the most prominent feature was a large table. On the table was a large red button, which was what you had assumed they were talking about. It was labeled ‘Emergency.’

”Are you sure this classifies as an emergency?” You asked.

”That’s just semantics.” Red said. “Everybody only gets to press the button once, so they tell us just to use it for emergencies.”

”Are you sure you want to use your button on me?” You asked. “What if there is some other emergency later?”

”It’ll be fine.” They reassured. “Nobody else has used theirs yet.”

You hesitantly agreed and let Red press the button. 

> **EMERGENCY MEETING** _(called by REDP1)_


	3. [File 2-02: after we explored]

A fair warning that updates in this story may be a bit slower as I am extremely busy right now with several different obligations. My plan is to try for at least once a week, but no promises.

Slowly, you watched as several others trickled into the room. These people wore brightly-colored space suits as well, but none of them were in the same color. Upon entering the office, many of the astronauts turned to look at you with confused or suprised expressions on their faces. Soon enough, everyone was standing around the table. 

“Why did you call a meeting?” Asked the one in pink. 

“Who the **** is that?” The one wearing a light green color interrupted. 

The blue one pointed at you “They were the one unconscious on the ship. We waited but they didn’t wake up.”

”Well clearly they have now.” An astronaut wearing a darker shade of green responded. “Alright, lets get this meeting started. Red, why did you call the meeting? I assume it’s for them.”

”Yes.” Red agreed. “They must have woken up pretty recently. I was fixing a weather node when they came up to me. At first I thought it was one of you all, but they started talking to me and I was confused, so I looked over and saw their color.”

”Do you remember anything?” Asked the green one, who had a rather gruff voice. “Are you in on this? Are you here to kill us?”

”N..no?” You took a step back, intimidated and rather concerned. “I just woke up on this ship thing and went to try to find anyone else. I met... Uh..” You gestured towards the person who you had been with” ... Red? Was that right? Call you by your color?” You looked to Red who gave you a thumbs-up and you continued “and they brought me here. I really don’t know what’s going on.”

The aggressive green one seemed satisfied for now, but still stared at you with a look of suspicion. 

“Alright, we should explain quickly.” Said the one in pink. “We don’t have too much time for the meeting.”

”****, you’re right.” The green astronaut seemed rather frustrated. “Alright everyone be quiet so I can try to explain this.”

”Why are you the one explaining?” Asked the one in a lighter green suit. “Who gave you the right to lead the discussion?”

”Relax, Lime. Nobody’s dead, we’re just trying to explain everything to the new person.” The one in red spoke. 

You had really hoped that ‘nobody’s dead’ was simply an exaggeration. It was not, as you would later learn.

The lighter green one, or Lime apparently, huffed before letting the other green continue.

”Ok everyone shut the **** up.” The green one started. “Gray, welcome to space. We’re on an alien planet of some kind, and we’re stuck here.”

That part did not come as too much of a suprise. Although, they seemed unsure of exactly where you were.

”Everyone has a list of tasks on their tablet. If we get them finished, we might be able to go back home or something, we’re not sure.” 

“What do you mean you’re not sure?” You asked.

The green one did not answer and kept going. 

“But it’s not that simple. Two of the people in the group aren’t who they say they are, and we have no idea who. These two, ‘impostors’ As we call them, are trying to kill us off one by one. We have to figure out who they are, and get rid of them, before they kill us all.”

”Supposedly.” Added the one wearing a yellow suit. “But nobody is dead, so i’m not so sure about that.”

Everyone around the table glared at them. 

For some reason, everyone seemed much calmer about this than you would have expected. Of course, you did notice everyone tense, and nobody was what you would call relaxed, but there was no nervous muttering or screaming. Then again, all of those people had heard this before and been operating under this threat for who knows how long. Either that or this was some elaborate ruse.

”Are you-“ You had been planning to ask if you were being pranked or something, but your unofficial leader kept going.

”No, I’m not joking. This is serious. I wish I had time to explain in more detail. And as for you, Yellow, stay in your lane with your conspiracy theories.”

”I’m just saying, if nobody’s died yet-“

”We have to treat this as a real threat. Do you want someone to die, huh? Do you want their blood on your hands because you wouldn’t take a threat ******* seriously? We’re in the exact same situation, last I checked, Yellow. Unless, of course, you’re an impostor and trying to convince people you don’t exist.”

”Woah are you accusing me?” Asked Yellow. “You’ve been so ******* suspicious ever since we got here. If there was an impostor, it would totally be you.”

”Uh... anyway...” Blue intterupted.

A considerable amount of astronauts sighed as Blue tried to explain. 

“We call eachother by the colors of our spacesuits. It makes things easier. We had to fix our ids in the beginning, instead of names a lot of them just had random words, so we just decided to go by color. And we aren’t supposed to talk or use the chat on our tablets when we’re not in a meeting. The meetings only last a certain amount of time and at the end we vote someone out. Also if you see someone hop in a hole that’s-“

”Blue, you’re overwhelming them.” Said Pink, who must have seen the wide-eyed look on your face. “Besides, Green was talking.”

Blue looked down at their feet, likely embarrassed. 

You were still trying to process the situation, which was being proven even more difficult by the fact that everyone seemed to be fighting over who got to explain things. The arguing was almost familiar in a way. 

Cautiously you asked the two “Can you please slow down a bit? I don’t really understand everything you’re trying to say.”

At this point Red spoke up again. “How about they stick with me for a while after this meeting? It might be easier for me to explain to them one-on-one.” 

“We’re not supposed to talk in between meetings.” Reminded Lime.

”I feel like this is a special circumstance though.” Red countered. “They’re going to need to get adjusted to the situation, much like we had to.”

”Well how are you supposed to teach Gray how to do their tasks if you don’t know how to do yours?” 

“We’ll figure it out together! Besides, I highly doubt you know how to do all of yours either.”

”Please, everyone stop fighting.” Pink spoke, sounding exhausted. “We aren’t going to get anywhere with this.”

As Pink tried to calm down your arguing crewmates, you saw Brown look towards you as if they had a question but were scared to interrupt.

”Yes?” You asked.

”Uh, I was wondering, maybe you should go get checked out by the doctor? You know, you were out for a while, I think.”

That was probably a good idea. Not only had you apparently been unconscious for a while, but this whole amnesia thing you had going on was a bit concerning. There was a chance you had suffered some sort of head injury or something when you landed(?) Honestly you were still unsure as to exactly what had happened and everyone was far too busy arguing with eachother to actually explain anything. Maybe at least the doctor would have some answers as to your physical questions.

”What color is the doctor?” You asked, looking to Brown to show you agreed.

Brown pointed towards Pink, who you now could see was wearing a doctor’s uniform. That would make sense. 

“Thanks.” You told them before turning back to the group. “I think maybe going with Brown’s idea might be best. I don’t really know what happened, and it’s probably best if Pink checks me over. I can’t really help any of you if I’m collapsing from a brain injury or something.”

You almost missed it, but Pink seemed nervous for a second. However, as quick as you blinked, their expression was neutral again. 

”That’s a good idea.” Agreed Green. “And you can scan while you’re there. That’s one thing that can prove your innocence.”

”If they have the task.” Added Orange, who spoke for the first time since the meeting began.

“Why can’t everyone scan?” Asked Lime. 

Blue responded. “It’s a task. Each task is only assigned to a few people, and only people with that task can do it.” 

“But why?” Lime insisted.

“I dunno.”

“It’s settled then.” Green said. “Gray will go with Pink to make sure they are ok. Red can go with them too since they offered to teach them how to do tasks. The other groups will be me, Lime, and Orange as well as Yellow, Blue, and Brown.” 

“Orange, I am so sorry.” You heard Red whisper, commenting in the fact that they were stuck with both Lime and Green. Green did not hear, but Lime gave Red quite the side eye. Red did not seem to mind, and almost seemed pleased with themself. 

“And for the sake of understanding, just until Gray gets their bearings, I will allow use of the chat system on your tablets between meetings. Please keep it to essential messages only.”

”Why can’t we talk between meetings?” You asked Red. Again, the question was just met with a shrug. Did nobody know what was going on around here? 

”I don’t want to be that person,” began Yellow “But we’re down to five seconds left in the meeting.”

”Ok Ok.” Green looked at you. “Real quick, voting system, we’ll explain later, just look at your tablet and press that little button at the bottom that says skip vote.”

You nodded, still trying to process exactly what was happening. Your finger hovered over the skip button as a few impulsive thoughts ran through your mind. You considered for a second simply choosing someone else to see what would happen, but that was probably not a good idea right now. Yet, if you wanted to, you still did have the option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll 1: [closed]


	4. [File 2-03: after we wondered]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll results: (36 votes total) Pink: 1 (3%), Red: 1 (3%), Gray (you): 7 (19%), [Skip Vote]: 28 (76%)  
> You all, I just have one thing to say.... why? This is the third chapter, nobody’s dead, and a quarter of you are already voting.

You figured it was probably best to do what you had been advised to and chose to skip. It seemed everyone had, except for one person who had voted for you. At least, if you were reading this right. 

At first you were confused. The icon that you assumed for whatever reason was meant to correspond to the color of the person who voted was gray. Well that could not be right, you had not voted for yourself. However, when you looked down to see the rest of the icons alongside where the skip button had been, you noticed they were all a similar shade. This was probably so that people could not see who voted for who, which might have made more sense than your original assumption. 

“Who voted for me?” You asked, still unsure exactly what the voting meant. 

“If you look, you should be able to- oh.” Pink answered, but then stopped with a look at their screen. “Nevermind. There’s no way to tell who voted for you. Funny though, I thought I remembered it showed votes.” 

”It’s never been like that.” Said Green, confused. “I mean, last time we voted it was like this.”

”No, you’re right Pink.” Yellow agreed. “I could have sworn that we could see the votes, but I also distinctly remember not seeing them.”

”I dunno... this is weird.” Lime replied, looking uncomfortable as well.

You looked down to your tablet to once again examine the voting screen, but it had changed. Now it showed what seemed to be a live camera feed of the inside of a volcano. Slowly, some text appeared on the screen. 

> **No one was ejected. (Skipped)**

“Ejected?” You asked.

”Right, with the timer counting down, we didn’t get to explain.” Said Green. “The voting is for when we figure out who the impostors are. Every time we meet up like this, we all vote for who we think it is. If someone gets the most votes, we throw them into the lava pit so they can’t hurt anyone else.”

”But what if you get the wrong person?” 

Green was silent for a moment. “Well we better not get the wrong person.” 

The fact that you had gotten a vote was now all the more concerning. Who had wanted you thrown into the lava pit? Who wanted to kill you? Maybe they were the impostor.

Your mildly-panicked thought process was swiftly intterupted by more text on the screen.

> **2 impostors remain.**

“Ok, I know that wasn’t there last time!” Yellow pointed at their tablet. “It did not tell us.”

“Again, yes, it did.” Replied an annoyed Green. “I distinctly remember our first meeting.”

Pink shrugged. 

“Red? Brown? Orange? Blue?” Yellow asked. “What do you all think?”

”I feel kind of like you said, Yellow.” Red responded. “I remember it both ways.”

”I hadn’t paid attention.” Brown looked down, sheepish.

Blue spoke next. “The first vote we had looked just like this.” 

Green looked at Blue and seemed to remember something. “Oh yeah, doesn’t Blue have a photographic memory or something?”

”No.” Blue responded, annoyed. “I just remember details well.” 

“Anyway!” Lime brought the conversation to a close. “Voting’s over. We’re not supposed to talk anymore.”

As much as everyone was annoyed, they were right. If the rules really were no talking between meetings, and the meeting was over, you should be quiet. You made your way over to Pink and Red, as the two of them were supposed to be your partners. Pink motioned for you to follow them, and the three of you headed out of the room.

As you followed behind the two, you walked past the lava pit. Now knowing that the plan was to throw people in if they were suspicious enough, you felt even more uncomfortable. The one solace was that at a certain distance from it the temperature was just right. Of course you were wearing the suit and there was heating in the buildings, but that did not change that it was a little cool outside. Shivering, from either the cold or the thought of the lava pit, you continued onward.

Soon you reached another building. The door to this one was locked, so Red ended up having to override the door manually to get inside. At least, that was what it seemed like they were doing. You were having a hard time telling.

When the door opened, the three of you walked inside to a laboratory-type room. Red began to walk over to the telescope, presumably to do a task. You though about motioning for them to come back over. After hearing about the impostor running around, you were not sure you wanted to be alone with anyone. However, they would not be far away and you could not risk seeming too paranoid.

Red went to their task and Pink and you walked a bit further to the medbay. You sat down on one of the beds and looked at Pink for instruction.

> **Direct Message:** _PINP0, GRAP8_

* * *

**PINK:** So this is awkward.

 **PINK:** I’m not a doctor. At least that I know of.

 **GRAY:** What do you mean you’re not a doctor?

 **PINK:** I mean, I guess I could have been. But I don’t know anything anymore.

 **GRAY:** what??

 **PINK:** Right. It never got brought up. 

**PINK:** None of us remember anything before being here. You aren’t the only one, you just woke up later.

 **GRAY:** Why wouldn’t anyone say that?

 **PINK:** I don’t think anyone trusts you. I mean, you even got a vote already.

 **GRAY:** Why? 

**PINK:** not sure. It wasn’t me.

 **GRAY:** So what am I supposed to do here? What if I am hurt?

 **PINK:** Well do you feel injured?

 **GRAY:** I don’t think so. But I don’t remember anything and I was unconscious for a while apparently

 **PINK:** Well that was all of us. We don’t remember anything and we all woke up at different times. 

**GRAY:** So why is everyone suspicious of me?

 **PINK:** i dunno.

 **PINK:** can I ask you a favor?

 **GRAY:** What is it

 **PINK:** Can you not tell anyone that I don’t remember how to be a doctor?

 **GRAY:** Why haven’t you told them? What if someone gets really hurt?

 **PINK:** I’m scared they’ll think I’m the impostor.

* * *

You had to admit that the conversation was weird. You understood and you felt for Pink, but they very well could just be trying to cover for themself. It was awfully suspicious that nobody else had mentioned the fact that they did not remember anything from when they arrived. If they really had no idea what they had gotten themselves into, how would they know what they were doing? How would they know they needed to do tasks or how the button worked? 

Regardless, it would be easy to confirm by asking literally any other member of the crew, so you let it slide for now. That would be a very bold lie.

* * *

 **GRAY:** I remember someone saying something about a scan? Should I do that?

 **PINK:** Yeah, I’d watch you. Do you have the task, though?

 **GRAY:** How do I know?

* * *

Pink motioned for you to show them your tablet. You held it out, and they pointed out where the list of tasks was located. The two of you looked the list, despite you not being exactly sure what you were looking for, and Pink shook their head. So it seemed you did not have whatever this scan task was. 

As you looked over your list, Red returned to the two of you.

> **Direct Message** : _PINP0, REDP1, GRAP8_

* * *

**RED:** Everything good with Gray?

 **PINK:** I did not see anything out of the ordinary. 

**RED:** Good. I saw you were starting to show them how to see their tasks?

 **PINK:** Yeah. Can’t say I know how to do some of these, though.

 **RED:** We’ll figure it out. I don’t know how to do a lot of mine either.

 **GRAY:** Is there some sort of instruction manual or something?

 **RED:** I wish. You just have to figure it out, I guess. 

**RED:** We’ll go together. Either of you have anything in here? It would be listed under Laboratory

 **PINK:** I started my task in here earlier, but I have to wait for it to finish. 

**GRAY:** I have one that has to do with the temperature?

 **RED:** Oh! I think I saw something like that when I was over there, follow me.

* * *

The two of you followed Red back in the direction of where you entered. They pointed out a small monitor with two different numbers on it. You were able to figure out that you simply had to make the numbers match, so you began to adjust it.

As you sat there completing the task, your mind wandered, trying to process exactly all of the information you had been given. Of course there was the insanity of waking up in space and learning there were apparently two murderers hiding in your crew, but you were mostly focused on what you had just found out from Pink. You were not the only one with this unexplained memory loss, which was both comforting and terrifying. Why did you wake up so much later than everyone else? Why did they leave you? Clearly they had sone sort of meeting before you came to, and in that meeting they had either come up with or were informed of a plan and policies. 

But where had that cone from? If everyone had the same amnesia, why were there specific rules and guidelines? How did they find out about the impostor? You were missing something here. Yet, at the same time, the situation felt oddly familiar. No specific memories were coming to mind of course, but you figured out how to do that task oddly quickly. Granted, it could have just been because it was so simple, but you had a nagging feeling you had at least done something like it before.

As you were deep in thought, you suddenly felt an urgent tapping on your shoulder. Right, you had been doing something. When you focused back on your task, you realized that you had been holding the button way too long and the number was now way lower than it should have been. You made awkward eye contact with Red who had been the one to alert you and fixed your mistake. You could see them glance at Pink as to say ‘are you sure they don’t have any brain damage?’. Embarrassed, you quickly finished resetting it and turned back around to your partners. 

Pink then pointed over to something else in the corner of the room, a rack of test tubes or something, and headed over in that direction. You were about to follow them, when you suddenly heard a loud boom from outside. You practically jumped as high as the countertop before going back to the messaging application on your tablet.

* * *

 **GRAY:** What was that?

 **RED:** im not sure. It sounded like it came from outside

 **PINK:** I have no idea. I haven’t heard it before.

 **RED:** Should we go outside and check it out?

 **RED:** Maybe someone messed up a task or something

 **PINK:** I’m curious. Gray you good witch coming with us?

* * *

To be honest, you were not thrilled about going to investigate a mysterious loud noise, especially with the threat of impostors lurking around, but you really did not have much choice. After all, you had to stick with your group, and you had no idea where anything was anyway. Hesitantly, you agreed in the chat, and the three of you exited the lab. As you left, you could not help but have a bad feeling about this.


	5. [File 2-04: after we heard]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this update, I nearly broke my ankle earlier this week and was dealing with that mess.

The three of you rushed out of the laboratory, anxiously looking around for the source of the noise. At first there was nothing obvious. It was completely silent, except for the footsteps of the crew members beside you and your own breathing. 

You noticed a few other crew members run out of various buildings to look outside as well. The group with Green, Lime, and Orange was making their way out of the office area you had been in before, and Blue was standing outside of the other building, waiting for their group to follow.

There were panicked looks exchanged between everyone as several people reached for their tablets. 

> **GROUP MESSAGE**

* * *

**BLUE:** Did you all hear that too?

 **RED:** Yeah

 **GREEN:** Yes

 **LIME:** Whatwas it?

 **PINK:** We don’t know

 **PINK:** Thought you might 

**GREEN:** We’re trying to figure this out

 **RED:** Do you think someone messed up a task

 **PINK:** Or knocked something over?

 **GREEN:** It wasn’t any of us, I had my eye on my group the whole time 

**RED:** It wasn’t us either

 **GREEN:** blue?

 **BLUE:** not me, and I don’t think it was either of my partners 

**GREEN:** yellow? brown? can you confirm?

 **BROWN:** I’m sosorry I was doing download I couldn’t reply

 **BROWN:** it wasn’t us, we were figuring out tasks 

**YELLOW:** why the witch hunt? nobody’s dead.

 **RED:** we’re just trying to see if someone made the noise 

**BLUE:** witch hunt?

 **LIME:** anyways it was probably nothing.

 **GREEN:** let’s just head back to our tasks.

* * *

You were ready to turn back in the direction you came with your group, but then Blue pointed out something. Somewhere off in the distance was some sort of trail, coming from the sky and headed towards the ground. It was fading, as if it had been there for a while now.

* * *

 **RED:** What do you think that is?

 **GREEN:** Probably just a meteor. It’s nowhere near us so it’s nothing to worry about.

 **YELLOW:** Wait, where?

 **BROWN:** It’s where Blue was pointing, I think 

**LIME:** Yes that’s it 

**PINK:** Anyone else getting a weird feeling about this?

 **BROWN:** actually yeah, a bit.

* * *

You had to admit, you were having a bit of an odd feeling around it yourself. Something about this, again, felt familiar. As if you knew that this meteor would hit the planet. Maybe you had seen it coming earlier? 

The conclusion of the impromptu meeting was that everyone would simply continue with their tasks. There was nothing to be done about the meteor anyway, so this was simply a short break from your everyday routine.

As everyone returned to their groups and headed in different directions, you saw Red point over to the building opposite where you came from that Blue had been standing outside of. Pink nodded, and the three of you headed into the room.

> **DIRECT MESSAGE:** _PINP0, REDP1, GRAP8_

* * *

**RED:** gray, this is electrical, and down that hallway is the oxygen room. 

**RED:** check and see if any of your tasks are in here, and we can figure them out.

* * *

You nodded and looked at your list. In this electrical area as Red had called it, you had one task that had to do with connecting wires. There was a panel on the wall that had a lightning bolt symbol, so you assumed that is where this wiring would be. As Red stood in front of something else on the wall, you opened the panel. Sure enough there were several colored wires that had been disconnected from each other. You had no idea which wires were supposed to be connected, but they had been marked with shapes and were matching colors, so you assumed you were supposed to connect the same colors.

The endeavor did not take too long as there were only four wires you had to connect. You finished your task before Red finished theirs.

Pink caught your attention and pointed towards a small room off of the main room. You followed them inside, waving over to Red to show them where you were going. Inside the room was a large monitor that seemed to be showing security camera footage. Pink showed you how to click through and look at the different places where the cameras were. You saw the group of Brown, Yellow, and Blue entering the office, and managed to catch Green and Lime entering the lab. 

For a moment you wondered why exactly there would be cameras in the first place. As you clicked through, you saw the cameras were, for the most part, located at every entrance and exit to each building. Of course, now that there was a possible killer, or two apparently, hiding amongst your group, these might prove to be useful, but you could not help but wonder why the cameras were here in the first place.

You went to click through it again to look at the other cameras, but suddenly the screen turned fuzzy. Did you do something wrong? A flashing red message appears on the screen that said 

> **[COMMS DISABLED]**

You went to your tablet to send a message asking what was going on, but the message application was not working. You also were unable to view your tasks. Pink and you walked out of the room to meet with Red, who seemed equally confused. 

Red began to walk off alone, but Pink pulled them back. It was probably best for the three of you to stick close by anyway as you had no way of trying to find eachother if you got lost. Somehow, the three of you wordlessly seemed to come to the same conclusion- head towards the meeting room. Or at least, that was where you had assumed you were goingwith the direction the other two were walking. 

As you walked, you looked to your tablet again to see if your task list had been restored. It had not, but you did notice a flashing arrow that guided you in the direction of something, much like a compass. You showed it to the others, who nodded and got out their own tablets. The three of you followed the arrows to a small pole with what looked like a satellite dish next to one of the smaller rooms you had not been in before. 

The three of you looked at a small device attached to the pole in confusion. This was what you assumed was broken, as it was where the arrow was pointing, but your screen was not providing any other instructions as to how exactly fix it. You tried turning the dial, but all you got was a weird mix of static. The other two also tried, but you were stumped. 

As your group contemplated the strange problem, one of the other groups arrived. Again it was Green, and Lime. Oddly enough, Orange was not with the two. Both Green and Lime approached your group and motioned for Pink, who was trying to fix it at the time, to step away. Pink moved to the side and Green and Lime began fighting to turn the dial. It probably took a lot longer with the two of them trying to fix it at the same time, but eventually, as Green turned the dial to just the right spot, your tablet went back online. You nodded to thank them and contemplated asking about Orange, before you noticed Orange running up behind the group. 

A part of you had been worried that Orange was dead. You wanted to chalk it up to paranoia, but honestly, in this situation that was a fair thing to worry about. But before you could continue your thoughts, another message popped up on your tablet.

* * *

 **GREEN:** Is this working for everyone now?

 **PINK:** Yes.

 **RED:** Thanks, we had no idea how to fix it.

 **LIME:** It wasn’t that hard.

* * *

You rolled your eyes.

* * *

 **ORANGE:** Sorry I was late. Finishing scan.

 **LIME:** I didn’t know that, why didn’t you save it so I could confirm it?

 **GREEN:** They told us and then started to scan when you ran off to go fix this.

 **YELLOW:** Wait what happened? 

**LIME:** Communications broke.

 **GREEN:** We had to fix communications. 

**BLUE** : That’s why I couldn’t find my tasks.

 **BROWN:** Thank you for fixing it! 

**GREEN:** It’s my job.

 **LIME:** You’re welcome!

 **GREEN:** You didn’t even fix it!

 **LIME:** I helped!

* * *

Lime and Green argued in the chat for a bit longer as your group exchanged awkward looks. You may not have been able to see their faces very well, but you could tell everyone felt awkward. Even Orange was looking off in another direction. 

Eventually their group set off to return to the lab, still furiously typing at eachother. It seemed someone had managed to convince them to argue in their own direct messages as the consistent pings from your messages stopped. Finally. Your group hopped into their own private messages to discuss where you would be going next. Apparently Red had not gotten to finish their download, so the group would need to go back to the electrical room at some point, but they said it could wait for another time since the rest of you had finished tasks in there. 

However, you said that you did not mind, and it would probably best to finish all the tasks in one area at once. Pink agreed, so the plan was made for your group to head back towards the electrical room. You and Pink would just look at the cameras again while you waited. Red seemed jokingly disappointed, they mentioned that they hated doing the download because it was boring and they could not access the messages during it, so they could not talk to anyone. Pink teased them about this, and assured them that they were a ‘strong independent person who could handle a simple download.’ 

Red gave Pink a soft punch on the arm before the three of you headed back toward something the electrical room. You walked slower this time, taking in the scenery around you. Your eyes landed on the trail that had come from the sky, and once again you got a sinking feeling in your stomach. You stopped in your tracks as you noticed a few brightly-colored blobs rapidly increasing in size from that direction. What?

You reached out your hand to get Pink and Red’s attention, but the two of them had already gone into electrical. Were you just seeing things? You blocked you eyes several times to try to clear them, but no matter how much you blinked, there were still colored blobs approaching you. They almost looked like...

...more astronauts?

That could not be right. Surely your group was the only one here, right? They would tell you if there were others. Although, if you were to believe Pink, none of them actually remembered much more than you. Also, with the trail from the sky, maybe this was a crash. Maybe it was not actually a comet or space debris. 

The best thing to do in this situation was probably to call the others for help, either using the button or the communication feature. You probably would not have time to make it all the way to the button, so you opted to send out a quick message instead.

* * *

 **GRAY:** I think that meteor wasn’t a meteor.

 **GRAY:** I think it was a spaceship.

 **GRAY:** Everyone meet me towards the center, there are others coming

* * *

You received several confused messages from the others, but you ignored them and started running towards the group of crashed astronauts. In hindsight, this was probably a bad idea, but you wanted to help, and you had to admit that you were curious. So against your better judgement you took off towards them at full speed, finding it easier to run in the slightly lower gravity. 

As you ran, you realized you would likely not be able to communicate with them, but it did not matter. You had managed to communicate with the others when the networks stopped working. Still, you called out to them, curious if they would be able to hear you.

”Hello? Are you ok?” You asked as the distance between you and the group closed.

As you ran, you noticed it was a group of four. Or, well, five upon further inspection. They wore the same type of suits as you, but in different colors.

The one leading the group wore black, with one in white following close behind. Behind those two was one in purple, supporting one in a blue-green color. And following behind these two, you nearly missed, but was a small child in a suit the exact same color as Lime’s. How had a child- you stopped yourself. Right now that was not the biggest question. 

You eventually caught up to the group and tried again to ask if they needed help. You held out a hand as a gesture of peace. 

“Hey are you all ok? We saw your ship crash-“ that was a bit of a lie but it was a lot shorter than the truth. “-and were worried you were hurt.”

The group stopped in their tracks at the sight of you. 

You wondered if they could hear you, so you tried again, just in case.

“Can you he-“

You were interrupted by a voice. 

“Stay away from us.”

”What?” You were trying to help them. Why would they tell you to stay away? You reasoned that you must have misunderstood them, so you stepped forward again.

The group promptly shuffled backwards. 

“I said stay away from us _._ ” The voice repeated.

”Why? I’m just trying to help-“.

”We know who you are. _What_ you are. We’re not falling for that again.”


	6. [File 2-05: after we met]

(technically this is a chapter note but I can’t put links in them so it’s here for now)

I just wanted to give a shout-out to [Lemonnie-Kimmie](https://www.quotev.com/LemonnieKimmie)on Quotev for some amazing fan art 

[This one from the first chapter of this story ](https://64.media.tumblr.com/ed30bf174e838a1d7f558cb7fb6e5ccd/1ad594f8e2470791-2c/s1280x1920/029e5db6d23136fd0f0d368d2b05d25081507da5.jpg)and [spoiler for the last book, although I really hope you’ve read that first] [this one from the last story. ](https://64.media.tumblr.com/b3df0b35d920227ef99eb4e76f04fd5e/1ad594f8e2470791-c7/s1280x1920/8ee81db7415d604af068e60211d82cb4ee26067f.jpg)

I love both of these so much and almost screamed when I saw someone made art for the story thank you so much!

* * *

“What?” You looked at the group, eyes wide. You had no idea what they were talking about, but were pretty sure it meant nothing good. However, you noticed that the comment had caused several members of the group to look at eachother, trying to discern something amongst themselves. 

“But they never hurt anyone.” Started a different voice.

”Did you forget what happened to Brown? They still attacked her.” The first voice argued back.

Brown? Did they know your crew members?

As you attempted to discern exactly who these people were and what their connection to you was, you could hear the footsteps of several members of your group approaching. Thank goodness.

”Over here!” You yelled, at this point completely ignoring the ‘no talking between meetings’ rule. “I think their ship crashed or something.”

At the forefront of the group were Green and Lime, who you had gathered at this point were fighting for official leader of the crew. Several others followed behind, and bringing up the very back were Yellow and Brown. It seemed everyone had responded to your message, and it was mass chaos. Everyone else had also abandoned the rule and were converging on the survivors. 

“Gray, what exactly happened here?” Asked Green.

”I’m not sure, I saw the group approaching over the hill. I tried to talk to them but they don’t really want to have anything to do with me.”

”**** right we don’t!” Said the same voice that you were starting to discern was coming from the one in white.

“They can hear you?” Asked Green.

”Yeah, our communication systems are linked or something. Their suits are similar so, I don’t know, maybe that means something?” You neglected to mention you were apparently being recognized because it kind of freaked you out. 

“What did you do?” Lime mumbled, curious as to why they were so angry. However, their speech seemed to alert the child wearing the same color to their presence, who proceeded to quickly rush over and hug them. Lime did not seem happy about this. “Who’s kid is this? Why is there a kid here?”

”Dad?” The kid spoke with a wavering voice, as if they were about to cry.

”What?” Asked Lime. “Who are you? I’m not your dad.”

The child did not seem to listen and buried their helmet into Lime’s suit.

”Well why don’t we get everyone back to our base and figure out what’s going on there.” Suggested Pink. 

Everyone agreed that would be the best idea, so the group headed in the direction of the buildings. Thankfully it was not too far, so the group got there rather quickly.

You noticed that the new group was rather skittish, around certain people specifically. The one in white wanted nothing to do with you, and the one in purple refused to let Red help them carry their barely conscious crew member. Pink ended up having to step in to help because Purple was so scared of Red. It seemed the one in blue-green, or cyan apparently, was hurt. You assumed it was from the crash, but you overheard something about being thrown into space. What had happened on their ship?

A million questions ran though your mind as you walked towards the meeting room, but you could not bring yourself to try to ask any of them. Instead you just focused on getting to the meeting room with both your crew and the other crew in tow. You were leading the group, so you were the first one into the meeting room. Just to make sure everyone was aware of the meeting, you went ahead and pressed the emergency button.

> **EMERGENCY MEETING** _(called by GRAP8)_

Everetine gathered around the conference table, and the room got rather crowded. It was actually fairly uncomfortable having thirteen people, a child, and Blue’s small robot who you had just noticed, all in the same room. It was clearly not designed to hold this many people. 

“Alright, Gray, please explain exactly what happened. And again, let’s be quick, we only have two minutes to discuss this.”

”Two minutes?” Asked White, suprised. “Look I don’t know what’s going on but it seems you all do things similar to us, yet we never had to time our meetings.”

”And” Purple intterupted. “Why did we have to bring Cyan here? She really should be lying down at least.”

”Everyone comes to the meetings, and we go by the time. I don’t make the rules.” Green replied, before shushing the others.

After hearing that you could not help but wonder. Green seemed to be the unofficial leader of the crew, and if Green did not make the rules, then who did?

”Ok, so we were leaving to go work on our tasks and I saw something running towards us. Turns out it was them.” You spoke quickly, trying not to take up any more time than you needed to.

“What happened?” Green turned to White, asking them. “Was it a crash?”

”There was a malfunction. We made a rough emergency landing. It actually happened a while ago but we finally managed to ge the door to our ship to open, which was probably made that loud noise earlier today.” Black answered instead. Upon seeing Green’s questioning look, they explained. “I’m the captian of our ship. He’s my second.”

”Is there anybody else, _captian_?” Green said the last word with malice. 

The other crew went awfully silent. “No. It’s just us left.” They said.

Green seemed to think for a moment, before asking the next question. “Who sent you? Who are you working for?”

”We were sent by MIRA, I assume the same for you with your suits and procedures. Pink, White, and I were trained for this mission, the others were randomly selected.”

Pink looked up in confusion. “I’m sorry but I have no idea who you are.” 

Black tensed again. “Sorry. Our Pink. Our crew was color-coded too.”

“So there were others. I suspected that when your kid thought I was their dad. Why would you lie?” Lime glared at the other crew. 

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t want to bring up the memories. Most of our crew died.”

”Died, or were killed?” Asked Green.

”Excuse me?” Black seemed slightly angry now. 

“Answer the question.” They paused.

Black looked down at their feet, before White answered for them. “Killed.” White added. “Some murdered, others... ejected.”

”There were impostors.” Purple added. “Th- uh two actually.” You noticed them glance around the room, eyes pausing for the longest on you. “They’re gone though. A friend of mine assured that.” 

“No, I’m pretty ******* sure there were three, Purple.” White seemed angry. 

“I don’t think-“ Purple argued back, glancing at Cyan for a moment. 

Black shushed the two. “What’s important is they’re gone. We don’t have to worry about impostors anymore.”

Several members of your group cringed.

”Actually...” Lime began before Green intterupted them. 

“Two.” He said. “There are two impostors hiding in our crew.”

The other crew’s faces swiftly ran through emotions. Shock, anger, fear, frustration; you could see it all through their tinted visors. 

“At lease we know it’s none of them.” Brown said.

”We can’t know that for sure.” Green replied. “Someone could be lying.”

Yellow muttered something under their breath that you could not hear. Most likely something to do with their idea that the impostor was simply a conspiracy theory. 

“Do you think you will be able to fix your ship?” Asked Green.

”No idea. At least not any time soon.” Black replied.

”Ok. I guess you will be staying here with us for a while.” Green thought. “I would say we would have to try to get you connected to our systems, but somehow you already seem to be showing up in ours.”

You glanced down at your tablet to the voting screen. Sure enough, automatically, all of the others had been added to the vote. There were now fourteen little portraits in total. Wait, fourteen? But there were only thirteen people here. You looked around the room to see if you had miscounted when Lime spoke up.

”Wait a minute, why is it showing me twice, with two different ID numbers?”

Everyone looked at the screen, confused. There were indeed two lime-colored icons on the screen. Perhaps the group might have to check on the technology after all. 

“It’s not you.” Blue spoke. “It’s the kid.”

”What?” Asked Purple, fuming. “Why the- I mean why would it put him on here? He wasn’t on it on our ship. I haven’t seen that before, ever. I don’t know of any-“

They were panicking now, most likely out of fear that the kid would be voted off or be the deciding factor in a wrong decision. 

“Purple, calm down.” Red turned to them. “Nobody is going to-“

”Get away from me!” Purple backed up from Red, pushing the child behind her.

Red seemed confused but decided to leave Purple alone. They looked to Pink to explain. 

Pink spoke, and Purple seemed a bit calmer about that. “Purple, Nobody is going to vote for a child. And we will just tell them not to press any buttons when the voting screen comes up. It will be ok, I promise.”

They were tearing up now. “I just... Cyan made me promise I’d take care of him. And she can’t right now, so it’s just me and him. Us against the world.”

“Hey, uh, we don’t have much time left in the meeting.” Said Red, awkwardly. “We need to figure out like, what they’re going to do. Do they have tasks or..?”

“That’s a good question, you seem to already be connected to our systems, so do you have tasks assigned?” Asked Green.

”I don’t know.” Said Black. “I can’t check while we’re in the meeting.”

”Well if not, you will be given some. You all have to pull your weight around here if you’ll be staying for a while.”

“We still have a lot of questions.” Said White. 

“As have I. After the meeting ends, You, Black, and I will have a private meeting.”

”What about the rest of us?” Asked Lime. 

The timer began to tick down as Green quickly blurted out a decision.

”Everyone skip here. As for the groups, Uh, Our group will take Black and White to show them around. Cyan will go with whoever is in Pink’s group as they’re the doctor. And uh purple-“

”Little Lime and I stay with that group too.” Purple asserted.

”Ok, that works.” Green shrugged, and pressed the button on their tablet.

You looked down at your tablet and quickly glanced over all the new faces. You still were incredibly anxious about how anxious the others were around you. Perhaps you could talk with Purple about it? She seemed a bit skittish around you, and Red for some reason. Yet, she was willing to talk to Pink, so maybe they could ask? You still were not exactly sure what happened on their ship and you had a feeling you would not be getting the full story for a while. 

As the timer was at mere seconds, once again you wondered what would happen if you voted for someone. They could not see who voted for who, right? Still, it would be irresponsible. You had no clues and you now were clueless as to your own team and a brand new team. Skipping was the best option here... right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll 2: [closed]


	7. [File 2-06: after we converged]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poll 2 results: (29 votes total) Red: 1 (3%), Orange: 1 (3%), Gray (you): 3 (10%), [Skip Vote]: 24 (84%)  
> Seems about right, next vote will be more interesting, I promise ;)

You had chosen to skip, and nearly everyone else had as well. Someone had voted for Yellow though, and there was once again a vote for you. However, you had expected as such, and were almost surprised that there had not been more votes on you, with the weird connection the other group seemed to have with you. However, the new group seemed skittish of Red as well, so perhaps it was simply related to the color you were and not who you were specifically. That would be a bit of a relief, you had to admit you were pretty freaked out about the possibility of these people knowing you. And from their reactions, it did not seem to be a favorable association.

Speaking of freaked out, the new group had begun messaging each other after the voting screen showed up. You were curious, none of them had been voted for so why were they so upset? You looked at your tablet for the confirmation of what you already knew.

> **No one was ejected. (Skipped)**

This only exacerbated the anxiety of the other crew. None of them were saying anything, but this simple pop up on the screen added to their confusion. 

You found it odd. It was almost similar to last time when a few members of your crew were freaked out about the voting screen. However, others insisted that their confusion was pointless as the only time they had voted before that, the system was identical. You were unsure exactly what to think. Something about this felt wrong or unfamiliar, like a few other members of the crew. But at the same time you had absolutely no frame of reference beyond the last vote. Clearly you were overthinking this.

Before you had the chance to overthink this any more, the group realized they had a much larger issue, as the final part of the message popped up.

> **3 impostors remain**

There were two categories of reactions to this. The new group immediately jumped on your group with questions such as ‘it does that? How? Why did it not do that for us?’ Which, once again, was mildly reminiscent of some of your crew’s confusion after the last meeting. However, the majority of your crew was focused on something completely different. 

Last time the message had said there were two impostors. 

Immediately Green sent out a message to your crew specifically.

> **GROUP MESSAGE:** ( _PINP0, REDP1, ORAP2, YELP3, LIMP4, GREP5, BLUP6, BROP7, GRAP8)_

* * *

**GREEN** : We can’t tell them.

**BROWN** : Tell them what?

**BLUE** : It said 3 impostors. Last time it said two.

**PINK** : So do we think one of them is an impostor?

**PINK** : Who?

**RED** : My bet’s on Purple. They really don’t like me for some reason.

**YELLOW** : They seem more scared of you.

**PINK** : They did say they had impostors on their ship. Maybe their Red was one.

**GRAY** : Maybe that’s why White was so scared of me? Maybe their gray was one?

**PINK** : That would make sense. If they were color coded the same way.

**GREEN** : We don’t have any information right now. 

**GREEN** : But for the record Black is pretty suspicious.

**LIME** : Are we totally sure that it's one of them?

**LIME** : We don't know what the system measures, or how accurate it is.

**LIME** : Maybe it just updated late.

**YELLOW** : Or, again, this is all a hoax.

**BROWN** : I don't think so. They seem really freaked out.

**PINK** : Wait, Lime, are you saying you think the other one is one of us?

**LIME** : I was just thinking. Maybe it takes a meeting for it to update.

* * *

Wait a minute, was she implying that it was you? Because the only thing that fit into that timeline was your arrival. You glanced at Lime across the room who you could vaguely see glaring back at you. Yeah, you were pretty sure now they thought it was you. But that would not make any sense, The other crew had arrived and the number just climbed up. It had to be one of them.

* * *

**GREEN** : Well we can figure this out later. Right now it's just important that we dont tell them 

**GREEN** : so if it is one of us they dont know we are on their trail.

* * *

Everyone agreed with various nods or hand gestures in Green’s direction. You were wondering what the other crew had been doing during your communication within your crew, but it seemed the others had been doing some communicating between themselves as well. 

Shortly after, you split back up into groups with the new members added. Recalling from before the panic, your group with Red and Pink would also now have Purple, Cyan, and the kid. You would have thought the groups would be split up more, but Cyan needed Pink’s medical experience, which was probably going to prove to be an issue if what they had told you last timewas true. Purple refused to leave Cyan and the kid was with them, so you were stuck with all three of them. Red was also in your group, who Purple also seemed to be wary of, so this was going to be awkward to say the least.

Green, Lime, and Orange walked off to the admin room or whatever that was called to talk to Black and White, while Brown, Blue, and Yellow went back to doing their tasks. You still were really not too sure as to how your tasks were supposed to work, but you would figure that out eventually. 

You and your large group set off to return to medbay, moving at a relatively slow pace. You and Red hung out towards the back of the group, trying to avoid Purple at all costs. 

The two of you exchanged chat messages and came to the conclusion that the new crew was likely uneasy about the two of you because, if they had been telling the truth about ejecting all their impostors of course, their impostors had been wearing the same colors as you two. That was at least the only explanation the two of you could think of. 

Neither of the two of you had any tasks left in the laboratory area, from what you could tell at least. Red had mentioned something about multi-part tasks that might bring you back here later, but clearly you had not gotten to those yet. Once everyone was all settled, the two of you planned to ask if you could go down into the room below the lab on your map to do the tasks you had there.

Eventually everyone got into the lab and Pink began attempting to practice medicine. You were wary of them, as they had previously told you that they had forgotten all of their medical skills when arriving here. However, they must have had some residual knowledge as they did not seem to be making anything worse. Then again, that was a pretty low standard.

“Thank you so much.” Purple told Pink. “For helping her.”

“Just doing my job.” Pink said quickly.

“This whole thing is so insane.” Purple continued. “None of this seems real. It shouldn’t be. I’m convinced that this has to all be a dream, or something, I just..”

You exchanged a look with Red and Pink. As much as you did not want to interrupt Purple, you were not supposed to be talking in between meetings. The two of them seemed to agree, and wordlessly, everyone agreed that the reminder to not talk inbetween meetings would come best from Pink.

”Uh, Purple?” 

“Oh. Sorry. You probably don’t want to hear my ranting. You have your own **** to deal with.”

”No, it’s not that.” Pink said. “We just, uh, well it’s a rule that we don’t talk between meetings.”

”Oh, again. I’m sorry. It wasn’t like that for us. Can I ask why or-“

”Because all of the communications are connected.” Green’s voice came through the speakers in your helmet. “Everyone can hear everything.” 

“Interesting.” You heard a voice that you thought was Black’s. “Our ship was set up differently. Maybe I can see if we can set that up here. It would be much easier than using the text chat with eachother.”

”I’m sorry but can everyone be quiet?” Another voice filtered though. “I’m trying to finish this task that needs all my attention.” 

“Righ. We shouldn’t be talking anyways, send me a message, Black.” Green replied.

As everyone went radio silent again, you were left to your thoughts.

So this new crew seemed to have previously been in a situation like you had. Impostors hiding amongst their crew and killing off unsuspecting victims. This was in no way comforting to think about, likely because it was proof that the danger you were facing was real. Of course, they could be lying, but unless they somehow knew the exact lie you were being told and were using it against you, it was not likely. 

They also seemed to have things set up differently than you had here, apparently. For starters they were allowed to talk to eachother between meetings, but you had just found out why. They must have had a better technological system, which you found odd considering their ship nearly crashed. You had yet to get the whole story and you had a feeling it would be a while before any of them trusted you enough to talk to you about anything, nevertheless how their ship nearly exploded or something. 

You were still trying to process what exactly the increase in number meant when it came to the impostors. The most logical conclusion was that it was someone from the other crew, which made you a bit anxious about leaving Pink alone with Purple. However, something about the situation felt more complicated. If they had a similar system, surely they would know that would happen and avoid it. Unless they did not know? Yet, thinking about it without any more information was not going to get you anywhere. Before you could even consider investigating you had to get your feet on the ground first. You barely had any idea of what was going on with your crew. For some reason, though, you could not shake the feeling that something was familiar about this.

Eventually, Red messaged Pink about the two of you going down to the so-called specimen room to finish tasks there. You have been so caught up in your thoughts that you needed a tap on your shoulder to bring you back to reality. Pink had agreed, so the two of you decided to head in that direction, leaving the others behind. You could not help but imagine Purple felt a bit safer now with the two of you leaving.


	8. [File 2-07: after we separated]

You and Red stepped into the decontamination doors, hearing a hiss as the doors shut. A mist filled the room that you assumed was supposed to be cleaning you or something, and the two of you stood there in silence for a few seconds. As soon as the cycle had started, you inadvertently started counting to see how long you would be stuck in there. It was relatively quick in the scheme of things, but still slow enough that you worried about being trapped in here with someone. As you looked at Red and realized you were completely alone with them, you shivered for a moment. They could easily kill you in here and... no. That was ridiculous. You trusted Red, at least enough to be alone with them for now. Besides, everyone knew the two of you were going together. Still, a small part of you was afraid, and you felt a headache forming from panic. However, as soon as the cycle completed and the two of you exited the room, the panic was gone. You were just overreacting. 

You walked along the hallway and into the small room at the end, where you found one of the other groups standing. Blue was sitting on the floor, messing with something on their little robot companion. Brown was kneeling down by a cooler on the floor, doing something with the items inside, and Yellow was standing at a task, getting increasingly frustrated as they hit a wrong button. A beep came from their task and they kicked the machine in anger. Blue flinched at the outburst.

Red greeted the others with a wave as they finally noticed the two of you. Brown and Blue waved back while Yellow continued their task. From the consistent beeping noises and Yellow shaking in frustration you were able to tell that it was not going well.

You looked down at your tablet to remind yourself of what task you had in here. You apparently had to download something, as well as ‘unlock the manifolds’ whatever that meant. Red messaged you telling you that they had apparently the same task as Yellow, so it was clear the two of you were going to be here for a while.

You managed to figure out that the download was located at the box with the wifi symbol on the wall. After a bit of fiddling around you managed to get your tablet connected. What exactly you were supposed to be downloading and why, you were unsure of. Regardless, you sat there, looking at the others in the room. 

Now you were able to see what Red meant about this being an annoying task, because you could not exit out of the download screen without it restarting, so you could not check your messages. You could see the others messaging each other but you just sat there and waited.

Your mind drifted to fears and concerns once again, as it should in a situation like this. You tried to distract yourself by focusing on the others around you, but your mind was buzzing with activity. There was a high chance that at least someone in this room would not hesitate to murder you. Of course, you doubted anything would happen right now as there were five of you in the room together, but it was still nerve wracking.

Eventually Yellow finished their task, and you could hear them sigh in relief. Red moved to start the same task for their own list, which made you wonder. Once your download finished, you went to your messages to ask.

> **GROUP MESSAGE:** ( _REDP1, YELP3, BLUP6, BROP7, GRAP8)_

* * *

**GRAY** : Why do some people have the same tasks? 

**BROWN** : I don’t know. 

**BLUE** : Maybe it's to make sure they get done?

 **YELLOW** : Maybe it's an accident? Or they just don't care enough to check.

 **BROWN** : I don’t think it's an accident. Blue and I have had a lot of the same tasks.

 **BLUE** : Yes we have

* * *

You saw Red finish their task, faster than Yellow had finished it earlier. Yellow seemed annoyed at this.

* * *

**YELLOW** : How are you so good at that?

 **RED** : I just did the task, it wasn't too hard.

 **BROWN** : ooooh 

**GRAY** : Really it doesn’t matter. You both got it checked off, right?

* * *

Nobody replied for a minute, so it seemed Brown took it upon themself to diffuse the awkwardness. 

* * *

**BROWN** : So, what do you all think about the others?

 **BROWN** : The new ones, I mean.

 **YELLOW** : I’m not sure, something feels off about them.

 **YELLOW** : I can tell they don’t like me already, and I’m not sure why.

 **RED** : Well you’re a very likeable person, so I don't see why not.

 **YELLOW** : I’m going to choose to believe you meant that genuinely.

 **RED** : Well you would be wrong.

 **RED** : But on a serious note, I understand. They dont trust me or Gray either.

 **GRAY** : Our theory is that if they were color-coded the same, maybe their Red and Gray were impostors.

 **RED** : And if they are being weird around you, maybe their Yellow as well.

 **BROWN** : But that would mean there would have been four impostors on their ship.

 **GRAY** : Four?

 **BROWN** : Because we know one of them is still an impostor. Why else would the count only go up when they arrived?

 **RED** : Ok maybe not Yellow then. 

**YELLOW** : So what, they just hate me?

 **BLUE** : Weren’t you saying the impostors were just a hoax anyway, Yellow?

 **YELLOW** : Yes, and I stand by that unless someone can prove otherwise.

 **RED** : So someone has to die in order for you to believe that someone’s here to murder us? 

**RED** : Our voting system thing even says there are impostors.

 **YELLOW** : Yes. You literally cannot be a murderer without first murdering someone. 

**BROWN** : I mean, that does make sense.

 **BROWN** : But I have to side with everyone else here, sorry.

 **BLUE** : Gray, I like your theory. But I am still confused. They said they got out all of their impostors.

 **RED** : They could be lying.

 **RED** : Let’s just be careful around them right now. 

**GRAY** : They don’t want anything to do with us anyway, Red. 

**RED** : Good point. 

**RED** : We should go check on Pink though, we left them with Purple and Cyan.

 **GRAY** : Probably a good idea. 

**GRAY** : See you all around. Be careful.

* * *

You and Red headed back in the direction you came from, back towards the lab. The two of you had spent a good amount of time working on things in the specimen room, so you wondered if the others would still even be there. You had to admit, with all this talk about impostors coming from the other crew, a part of was scared that Pink would be dead up there. It was easy to tell that Red had the same fear, but neither of you wanted to say anything about it, as if it would make it true.

You flinched as the doors closed, leaving you and Red alone in the decontamination room. Again, you had to remind yourself that this was in fact not a death sentence, but something about being locked in the room still made you nervous. It felt familiar, but in a bad way. As if you had been locked alone with someone before and it did not end well. Perhaps it was a fragment of a forgotten memory. You glanced over at Red to see them looking at something on their tablet, before taking a deep breath. They were not going to attack you. Right?

The doors opened again, and the two of you stepped out of the small room. You were both relieved to see everyone that you had left there alive. Purple jumped with the sound of the doors, but quickly settled themself. They were sitting by a bed where Cyan was sleeping, the mini crewmate on their lap. 

Pink looked at you two expectantly and you gave a thumbs-up to indicate that the two of you had finished your tasks in the specimen room. Pink nodded, before sending you a brief message. They asked if you could wait with the others while they went down to do their tasks in specimen, a switching-off of sorts. You hesitantly agreed, still a bit worried that if some medical emergency would arise, Pink would be too far away to help in time. Then again, you knew, and at this point you were pretty sure you were the only one that knew, that Pink did not remember the majority of their medical training, at least if they were telling the truth, so the really was not much difference between you watching over them and Pink watching over them.

The two of you sat there quietly, afraid to say anything to Purple. They still seemed very cautious of you, and you did not blame them, especially if your theory was true. You watched them flinch every time you or Red made any sudden movements, so you tried to move slowly. You hopped up on the bed across from Cyan and Purple, and watched from a distance. 

The child seemed to get antsy and tugged on Purple’s sleeve. Purple nodded at the child, and they hopped off of Purple’s lap and ran to the bathroom. 

“Stay safe and come right back.” You heard Purple say.

As much as you did not want to correct them, you had been startled by their voice and realized you should probably remind them about the no-talking rule. 

“Uh, Purple, I don’t wanna be rude but we aren’t supposed to be talking.” You said.

”Oh? What about the message I just got? Did I misread it?” They asked.

”What message?” You looked down at your tablet, not seeing anything.

”I just got it while we were in the decontamination thing.” Red spoke. “Black helped Green fix our comms so we can only hear people close to us.”

”Yeah, that’s how it was on our ship.” Purple replied.

”Weird, I didn’t get the-“ As you began to say you had not gotten the message, it popped up on you screen. “Oh. Never mind I just got it.”

”I guess you’re just a bit out of sync.” Said Red. “I’m sure it’s fine, just some technical error.”

”Yeah...” You agreed softly. Something about that was bothering you, but you were unable to put a finger on it.

You sat there awkwardly for a moment until the kid came running in excitedly. 

“Does this mean I can talk now?” They asked. 

Purple chuckled. “Yes, you can talk.”

The child seemed happy as they jumped back up onto Purple’s lap. 

As the kid started to ramble, you noticed that you were getting rather tired. How long had you been awake for? It was impossible to tell as there was no change in the light, it did not get lighter or darker outside like it would have as the day progressed on earth. Inadvertently you yawned as you stretched back onto the bed. 

“Tired?” Asked Red.

”Yeah, a bit.” You confessed. 

“Me too, honestly.” Red agreed. “You know, now that I think about it, I don’t think any of us have slept since we got here. With all the fear about impostors and everything.”

”I mean, that makes sense.” You said. “You don’t want anything to happen while you’re sleeping.”

”You’re right, but honestly I’m pretty exhausted too. Maybe we can just take a nap or something for a bit? I mean the beds in here are pretty comfortable.”

”I wouldn’t be opposed to that.” You shrugged. 

You were about to lie back down for some much-needed rest when you noticed Purple seened uncomfortable about something.

”Hey Purple, you Ok?”

”Oh, uh, yeah, I’m fine.” They said, obviously lying. 

“Are you tired too?” Asked Red. “If you want someone to be awake to watch over your friend we can take turns.”

”No, it’s not that.” Purple said. “It’s just, ah.. never mind.”

”Are you sure everything’s ok?” You asked. “We could find somewhere else to nap if this bothers you?” You were unsure of exactly why you napping here would bother Purple, but maybe that was it.

”Could you?” They asked, surprising you. “Ah, sorry I didn’t mean to be rude it’s just... complicated.”

You and to admit you were slightly suprised that was it, but you could tell that Purple was made significantly uncomfortable by the prospect of you two napping in there. You looked over to Red who gave a confused look, and then a nod.

”Yeah, uh, we can find somewhere else to nap.” Red said. “I don’t want to make you any more uncomfortable, and I don’t think Gray does either.”

”Let’s just wait for Pink to get back.” You suggested. “So you’re not all alone here.”

”Thank you.” Purple looked down. “Really, I really appreciate it. I’m sure you two are nice, and it’s so stupid, but I just... I can’t bring myself to trust you. It’s unfair and I’m sorry.”

The group of you sat quietly for a moment as you waited for Pink, until Red spoke. 

“You don’t have to answer this but, is it the colors?” Red questioned. “I know you all were saying things were really similar over there, and so we were thinking that maybe...”

Purple cut them off. “Red and Yellow.” They took a deep breath. “Red and Yellow were our impostors. You and your Yellow don’t look or sound anything like them, but the colors... I just can’t.” 

You wanted to ask why Purple, and by extension their other crewmates were so afraid of you then, if you were not one of the impostors, but you did not want to push them right now. Luckily, Red had taken over the conversation. 

“It’s ok.” They said. “I don’t want to remind you of anything like that. We will just wait for Pink to get back, and then we’ll go. You ok being with Pink?”

”Yeah. Pink is fine.” Purple replied. “Thank you.”

Red nodded. “And, I’m so sorry for your losses.”

Purple sniffled before speaking again. “I still have Cyan, and that’s all that matters.” 

For some reason Purple looked you straight in the eyes as they spoke.

Nobody dared to say anything more after that. Soonafter, Pink rejoined the group and you and Red told them you were going to look for someplace to nap. Pink agreed to watch over the others as you left, mind still reeling from your conversation with Purple.


	9. [File 2-08: after we waited]

You and Red set off from there, waving a goodbye to the others. Technically you had split up from your group, but your group was so large that it most likely did not matter. _Watch this bite me in the behind later,_ you thought to yourself. 

Anyways, the goal was to find some place to lie down. It was painfully obvious that there was nowhere around in any of the buildings you had been in to lay down, so the two of you were at a loss. The carpet in the admin room was looking mighty comfortable about right now. 

Red had the idea to ask Green, since they had seemed to take a leadership role with the crew, albeit aggressively. Maybe they would know where you could lie down. Surely whoever sent you on a space trip would have thought to provide you somewhere to sleep.

You and red wandered around for a few minutes, trying to find Green. You thought about messaging them but honestly neither of the two of you wanted to be the one to talk to them, so instead the two of you just hoped you would run into them. Unfortunately you did not end up running into Green, but instead found yourself face-to-face with Black and White. 

“What are you two doing, just wandering around?” White questioned. 

You looked to Red, wondering if they thought explaining your situation would be a good idea, who shrugged and answered.

“We were just looking for some place to lie down. We can’t really seem to find anywhere around here. Maybe the carpet on the admin room floor?”

Is there nowhere around here to sleep?” Black asked, confused.

”Nowhere that we can find.” Said Red. “Green never really told us where to go.”

“Some captain that guy is.” White mumbled. 

“Well, I know we have bedrooms on our ship.” Black said. “We’re not too far away. I know it’s not a great solution but it’s all I can offer.”

“No offense,” started Red “but didn’t your ship crash?”

“Technically it was an emergency landing.” Said White. “But I agree, we shouldn't just be letting anyone on our ship. Especially them.” White said the last part quietly, but the two of you were still able to hear. It seemed the other crew was still biased against Red, which made a bit of sense after what Purple had told you.

“It’s not like they can take off.” Black countered. “Besides, if their captain isn’t being much of a captain, I figured I would help.”

“What about the ship you all came here in? It looks identical to ours.” White asked.

You had not thought about that. Maybe the two of you should check that out first?

“We can’t get in if that’s your question.” Red answered for you. “I remember trying after I woke up here. I asked at our first meeting and nobody else could get in.”

Well that was news to you. Red also mentioned after they woke up, which implied that they had indeed been in a similar situation to you. Perhaps Pink had been telling the truth about nobody recalling anything from beforehand.

“Really, it will be fine.” Said Black. “Would you rather the two of them pass out in the snow?”

White mumbled something else that you could not discern this time, which was probably for the best.

Eventually, White begrudgingly agreed to Black’s idea, and the two of them led you and Red to their ship. The walk was not as far as it had felt when you first saw the others approaching. Their ship was actually relatively close to yours, just hidden behind a massive rock.

Nobody really talked during the walk, as it was quite obvious White was not into this idea. In retrospect, it probably would have been better to find Green and ask them about a place to sleep, but it was too late now. 

A thought crossed your mind: what if the two of them were leading you out here to your death? What if their plan was to lead you to their ship and then kill you where nobody would find the bodies? You tensed as the thought passed. But, if the two of them were impostors, it would have said that there were four, right? Since the number updated to three once the other crew arrived. Yet, there was the possibility that one was not actually wherever the system defined as an impostor, but was still helping them out. This was looking more and more like a trap the further you walked. 

Before you could muster up the courage to suggest that this might not be a great idea, the four of you had arrived to their ship. They had been right. At least from the outside, their ship looked identical to the one that was parked by your facility. It would make sense, though. While there were some differences in protocol, nearly everything else was the same. Whoever had sent them clearly sent you as well. What did they call that organization again?

Black fiddled with the door and it opened, allowing the four of you inside. They led you to a hallway with several rooms, and said that you could lie down anywhere as long as it wasn’t already taken. The two of them pointed out where their room was as well as Purple and Cyan’s room. You simply took the one next to theirs, scanning your card to open the door for the two of you. Red had decided to sleep in the same room so you could watch out for each other. It was slightly unsettling to think about how the people that had slept in this room were dead, but you tried to avoid letting that thought linger too long in your mind. 

Regardless, the two of you thought it best to try to grab a change of sheets for the mattresses. Again, sleeping in the bed of a dead person was not a great thought, so the least the two of you could do was to change the sheets.

Red began to look around in the drawers for sheets, but found some clothes instead. 

“Huh. It looks like whoever their Yellow was lived in here.”

“Yellow, huh?” You thought about the Yellow that you know. If their Yellow was anything like yours, you felt sorry for them. 

“I mean I would assume, all the clothing is yellow.”

“Makes sense.” You said, distractedly. “Maybe they keep their sheets in a hallway closet or something, I’ll go check.” You offered, stepping out of the room into the hall.

“I’ll keep looking for sheets in here.” Red replied.

As you walked out in the hallway, you glanced around, but there was no obvious linen closet. Then again, why would there be? It was a spaceship. Maybe you should go ask Black and White where the sheets would be, you thought to yourself. 

As you headed in the direction you remembered them pointing, you began to hear snippets of a conversation. The two of them were talking, and the more you listened the more you realized that they likely had no idea you were listening.

“What were you thinking letting people on our ship, The two of them, nonetheless?” The voice that you had discerned was White’s asked.

“I was thinking they need some place to sleep. You’ve met Green, something is obviously off with him.” Black’s voice replied.

“But come on, seriously, those two?” 

“White, I know. Believe me, the fact that everyone has the same colors freaks me out too.”

“It’s not just everyone. They murdered people, and we let them in our ship!”

“But they’re not the same people. First of all, Red looks nothing like our Red. For starters, they’re shorter.”

“But Gray?”

There was a sigh from Black.

“Come on, you can’t ignore the fact that they look the exact same.”

“We can’t see their faces that well.” Black retorted. “Just because their body shape is similar doesn’t mean anything. Besides there’s no way…”

“Look, I just don’t trust them. Either of them.”

“But Gray-”

White cut Black off. “I know what you’re going to say. I was there too. But excuse me for not wanting to get murdered.”

“Whatever. Clearly you are not going to agree with me and Purple on this.”

“Wait, Purple doesn’t think that…?”

Black interrupted White, more forcefully. “My point is they’re not the same people anyway, so why does it matter. I’m done talking about this.”

The two of them grew silent, and you decided that you would not be getting any more out of the conversation. Also a no-go was going in there to ask about the bed sheets. You would just have to hope that Red managed to find some in the room somewhere.

Speaking of rooms, where exactly was the one that you had been assigned? It was down the hall a couple rooms, but how many exactly you were having trouble remembering. Your best thought was to just guess and try to see which one you could get into. 

You went up to one door and tapped your card on the scanner, but clearly that was the wrong room as it flashed red and did not let you inside. As you stood back to look at the door, frustrated, only then did you notice the color-coded nameplates on the door. The one you had tried to get into was their Brown and Orange’s room. Red had said something about one of the previous owners of your soom being color-coded yellow, so you decided to look for the yellow nameplate. Sure enough you were able to find it, and approached the door. 

As you looked to make sure it was the right room, your heart skipped a beat.

Their Yellow had a roommate, and from the color of the nameplate it seemed their roommate was also Gray. That was weird enough in itself, and the realization of that alone would have unnerved you, but that was not even the weirdest part.

The Gray nameplate had your name on it. Not just your color, the ID was even different reading GRAP0 instead of your GRAP8, but the name, that was your name. 

You first thought was maybe it was electronic. But you quickly threw that thought out the window when you noticed the name was printed on a sheet of stiff paper and slid into place. No, this could only be changed manually.

As you stood there, marvelling at it, you heard knocking on the other side of the door.

“Hello?” Red called. “The doors closed and I can’t get out. My card won’t open them.”

You reached to scan your card to open it, when you panicked. Whatever Black and White had been talking about, it did not seem good and it had to do with you. What if they made the connection to your name? Quickly, you snatched the paper with your name on it out of the wall-mounted holder and crumbled it into your hand. They could not know. Nobody could.

After taking a deep breath, you scanned your card to open the door for Red.

“Oh! Thank you. I don’t know what’s wrong, my card couldn’t open the doors. It seems yours can though, so that;s good. I wonder why.”

“I don’t know.” You answered, painfully aware that it was partially a lie. “Could you find any sheets?”

“I did, actually.” Red stated. “Also while I was looking through the drawers,I found gray clothes. It’s interesting how you picked the same room as the other Gray did.”

“Yeah. Interesting.” You mumbled. 

“Well, I was able to change the sheets, so I think we can finally get some sleep.”

You nodded and flopped down on one of the beds, physically exhausted but now unable to rest due to your recent revelation. 


	10. [File 2-09: after we learned]

Despite the questions raging in your mind, you managed to get some sleep out of pure exhaustion.

Or at least, you thought you had gotten some sleep. Because as soon as you closed your eyes, you found yourself awake again. Annoyed, your first instinct was to crawl back under the covers and hide. You tried to look for Red, but they were nowhere to be found. Maybe you should get up and see where they were? Before you could even get out from under the covers, you felt a chill pass by, and you shivered despite your blanket. Something about it felt eerie, almost supernatural. Were you being haunted by the ghosts of the astronauts that last inhabited this ship?

You nearly screamed when you found that may just be the case.

Suddeny a group of colorful figures faded into view. 

You were surrounded by semi-transparent people, all of which were wearing the same colored space suits you had grown familiar with. 

Brown, Blue, Pink, Orange, Green, Red, Lime

All there, staring at you with their ghostly gazes.

Yet, you noticed quickly that not everything matched up. Their body shapes were different from those of your crew, and while it was difficult to see your crewmates’ faces through their visors, you could pick up a few major differences. They all wore different decorations on their suits as well.

What was this?

All of them seemed to be speaking to eachother, and did not seem to notice your presence. It was hard to make out exactly what they were saying, their voices echoing and overlapping in a way that made you uncomfortable.

”Hello?” You asked, gaining no direct response.

You could only filter out portions of sentences and single words from their conversation, none of which made any sense.

From what you could tell, they were talking about you as well. 

A few seemed to be angry, while others seemed to be fond of you. You wished you could hear more, or at least communicate with them to let them know you could see them, but it was futile. 

You laid there for a while, slowly beginning to panic as the noise of the ghosts got louder, and clearer. As they talked more and more and you could feel the tension in the room rise, the voices finally reached a crechendo, and then stopped.

A singular voice, from whom you were uncertain, finally reached your ears clearly. 

“Do you think they know the magnitude of what they’ve done?”

* * *

You jolted up in the bed, breathing heavily. A quick scan of the room let you see that there were indeed no spectral figures around you, and that Red was back asleep in their bed. That had to have been some sick dream. But the more you tried to remember exactly what had happened, the more it slipped away from you. You quickly typed down a few notes on your tablet, but it ended up being mostly gibberish. 

Once again, there was no indication exactly how much time had passed because it never seemed to get dark on this planet, but by checking your tablet you had found it was a few hours. 

You had intended to maybe get a bit more sleep, but you were interrupted by pounding on the door. Had you overstayed your welcome? Probably. A part of you was willing to bet it was White, getting you and Red out of here, since they clearly did not trust either of you. Your breath hitched as you remembered you had taken the nameplate down in a panic. What if they noticed it was gone? How would you explain that? Sure you could feign ignorance, but with their suspicions of you already, you doubted it would go far.

Thankfully, it seemed Red thought you were still asleep or something, so they got up to open the door. As they opened it you quickly pulled on your helmet as an afterthought, remembering the conversation you had overheard. You could prove that you were a different person just by showing your face, but on the off chance that something else was going on, you decided not to show your face just yet. 

“Hello?” A groggy Red arrived at the door just as they opened it. 

“We need to go.” Black said sternly. 

“Why?” asked Red, who was clearly braver than you.

“Have either of you checked your tablets?”

You had not bothered to look at it since you got here. You had not thought there would be any messages as you could talk to each other now, and looking for tasks to do around here would be kind of pointless. You got off of the bed and grabbed yours, and your stomach immediately dropped. This is what you had been afraid of.

> **DEAD BODY REPORTED:** _(PINP0)_

Well, it seems Yellow may be in for a reality check.

Silently, the four of you quickly exited the ship, Red pulling on their helmet in a hurry. Your group did not dare to say anything as they returned to the base, mind now occupied with a new question. Who killed Pink?

The last place you had seen them was when you had left them to watch over Purple and Cyan. Could Purple have killed them? The number of impostors did seem to go up when the new ship arrived, and Black and White were both here while the body was reported. Of course you could not rule out someone from your team, in fact in the grand scheme of things that was probably much more likely, but that was the only evidence you had. 

The four of you, for obvious reasons, were the last ones to arrive to the meeting. Apparently the timer did not start until everyone was there, though, so it was fine. While you got a couple weird looks, Black had apparently messaged Green as to why you would be so late. The corner where Pink had usually stood was empty, which you found very unnerving.

“Now that everyone has joined us, we can begin the meeting.” Started Green. “Those four were out on an expedition, which we will discuss later.” The green astronaut’s tinted visor did not disguise the glare in their eyes.

“Regardless, as you may know, Pink was found dead. As much as we wish we could attribute this to an accident, it was clear this was intentional. I will spare you the details but, this was no accident.”

“Who found the body and where?” Asked Black.

“Lime, Orange, and I stumbled upon it while we were running around completing tasks. They were dead in the laboratory.”

Your heart sunk, and you and Red both turned your eyes to Purple. 

You could see Purple begin to panic. If they had truly been through this before, they would know why this does not look good for them.

“Does anyone know who was in the lab?” Asked Lime.

“Well, when we ran into Red and Gray here, the two of them were coming out of the lab.” White responded. “Also, we didn’t have eyes on the two of them the entire time. They could have snuck off at some point.”

Was White trying to turn this on you?

“Yes, we were leaving the lab.” Red began, surprisingly calm for being indirectly accused of murder. “But we left Purple alone with Pink when we left.”

“Purple?” Lime asked.

“Yes. Red and Gray left me with Pink to go find some place to lie down.” Purple started.

“Why did they not just use the medical beds?” Blue asked. “Those are comfortable enough.”

Purple did not know what to say to that question. Thankfully Black came to her rescue.

“That’s irrelevant and we’re on a time schedule. Purple, continue.”

Purple nodded. “Anyway, the two of them left when Pink got back from decontamination. They switched off to do tasks. A while later, Pink said that they had the task to fix the drill, and said they would only be down the hall. I waited for them for a while, but they never came back, and then their body was called. I know this looks bad, but I have several alibis. Besides, why would I kill someone and then stay in the area?”

“We know none of our crew are impostors anyway.” Said White. “What about the rest of you?”

“Lime, Orange, and I were all together for the entire time. That’s how we found the body.”

Green explained. “It can’t be any of us for this kill.”

“I was with Blue and Yellow most of the time.” Brown stated. “Same here.”

“We were together too, White and I. We were also with Gray and Red for a while, so depending on when Pink was killed, they may be accounted for.”

You thought for a moment back to last ‘night’, when you woke up to find Red gone. Of course, you room had also been filled with ghosts murmuring at you, so there was a good chance that was a dream of some sort. Still, it unnerved you, but you did not dare to say anything. Red would not hurt anyone from what you had seen of them, and even if you did give your reasoning it would just lead to more questions.

“The only one not accounted for then is Purple.” Said Green.

“Or Red or Gray.” Lime and White seemed to say at the same time. 

“If we were both the impostors, why would we kill Pink and leave Purple alive as a witness?” Asked Red.

“You do make a point.” Stated Green.

“So it’s down to Purple, are we voting them then?” Asked Lime.

“It’s not Purple!” You heard a voice that was only slightly familiar. Who said that?

Everyone looked around to see who had said it, and the answer came when they spoke again. It was Purple’s kid. 

“I was with her the whole time. All she did was sit by Cyan.” The kid continued.

“Can the kid do that?” Green muttered.

“What do you mean?” Purple asked.

“Can the kid provide testimony?”

Purple looked confused as well, and they were the one being cleared by the kid.

“Well, the system shows that they have a vote, so I guess.”

“But why does he have a vote in the first place?” Purple asked. 

“Also irrelevant. So Little Lime here is vouching for Purple.” Green said. “Anyone else have anything to add before we vote?”

“Should we have like a moment of silence or something for Pink?” Asked Lime. “Yknow, give them some respect or something?”.

“I think so.” Said Brown. “I’d want that.”

So the group of you sat in silence around the table, nobody sure exactly what to say as it sunk in that one of your fellow crew members was dead. 

It obviously affected everyone, and in different ways. The members of your crew were feeling this pain for the first time, and were still processing exactly what had happened. Those from the other crew were experiencing a different kind of loss. The realization that they would have to go through this again. They had survived their encounter, but here they were again.

And then there was you. You had absolutely no recollection of anything before waking up on the ground just yesterday, but there was clearly some connection. You wanted so badly to chalk it up to coincidence, but it was obvious you were connected to this crew somehow. You ran your fingers over the name that you had since stuffed in a pocket on your suit. That was your name, on their ship. Not to mention your dream that felt awfully real. What had those ghosts said again? You had done something. Something important. But what?

Now someone was dead, and as you cast your vote, you could not help but feel you had been through this before.

Poll 3: [Chapter 2-09 Poll](https://www.quotev.com/quiz/13627360/Chapter-2-09-Poll)

Poll opened: 2:00am EST (02:00) March 11, 2021

Poll closed at or after: 2:00am EST (02:00) March 14, 2021


End file.
